Specials

New Delhi: The allocation for capital outlay on telecommunication and electronic industries is Rs 125 crore for the Departments of Telecommunications Communications and Information Technology (DeiTY), according to the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 29.

While the capital outlay on telecommunication and electronic Industries has been sharply increased for the telecommunications department from Rs 16 crore in the revised budget of 2015-16 to Rs 80 crore for 2016-17, it had been cut from Rs 69 crore in the revised estimates of the DeiTY for 2015-16 to Rs 45 crore for 2016-17.

Interestingly, this works against the interests of the broadcasting industry, since set top boxes, antennae, headends and other equipment would fall under the DeiTY' help to public or private industry under the head of 'capital outlay on telecommunication and electronic Industries.'

The total budgetary outlay for the Telecommunication Department is Rs 21214.66 crore, while it is Rs 3328.82 crore for DeiTY for 2016-17

Under Digital India programme, there are separate allocations for the Manpower Development Programme to ensure availability of trained human resources; Electronics Governance to deliver all Government services electronically to the citizens in his/her locality through integrated and inter-operable systems via multiple modes, while ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs; the National Knowledge Network with multiple gigabit bandwidth to connect Knowledge Institutions across the country; Promotion of Electronics/IT Hardware Manufacturing; R&D in IT/Electronics/CCBT; and Foreign Trade and Export Promotion to reimburse Central Sales Tax to Electronics Hardware Technology Parks (EHTP) and Software Technology Park (STP) units.